Born On The Fourth Of July

Filmmaker, Oliver Stone, (Platoon, Natural Born Killers, JFK) is well known for making movies related to historical events about political/controversial subjects including The Vietnam War, assassination of JFK, presidential leaders, and Jim Morrison, the lead singer of The Doors.

After writing screenplays for Midnight Express and Scarface, Stone went on to direct critically acclaimed films such as Platoon, in which he earned an Academy Award for Best Director as well as a Best Picture win, Wall Street, his non-historical film about a corrupt businessman teaching his protégé the ethical concept of money and power, his next film after Wall Street is an Oscar nominated film of his called “Born On The Fourth Of July.”

Even though this is based on true events, I’ll do my best not give too much away.

A Biographical film based on an autobiography by Ron Kovic, about a Vietnam Veteran returning from the war after becoming paraplegic due to his wounds. Because of what he witnessed in Vietnam, he becomes a peace activist as he tries to show the people on how War can effect one individual after another.

Born On The Fourh Of July came out in December 1989. The film went on to become a critical and box office success, earning eight Academy Award nominations including Best Actor for Tom Cruise, Best Director for Oliver Stone, and Best Picture. Stone earned his award for the film but sadly, Cruise went home empty handed.

With American Made coming out in September 28, Born On The Fourth Of July is the first biopic drama starring Cruise and I want to give you movie goers a biopic related film before his future film will be released.

This review contains no SPOILERS in which you’re allowed to read all about it.

Patriotic: Tom Cruise did a fantastic job as Ron Kovic.

Willem Dafoe, Tom Sizemore, and Tom Berenger have small roles and they did a good job on their performances.

Oliver Stone himself has a cameo as a news reporter. He’s like Alfred Hitchcock appearing in his own movies saying, “Hey everyone.”

This movie explores Kovic’s post-Vietnam experience as a broken war veteran.

Opening Scene shows Kovic’s childhood and a reason why he wants to serve in the military.

The film depicts an ugly atmosphere of war and how it effects Kovic.

Cinematography was decent.

A wresting match with Kovic, has a banner labeled 1962, this is the year Tom Cruise was born in July 3, a day before Kovic birthday.

One character mentions Superman. In 2018, Henry Cavill, who currently plays Clark Kent/Superman in the DC Cinematic Universe, will star in Mission Impossible 6 with Cruise.

Stone manages to recapture each following decade from the 60’s to 70’s.

The Moral of this biopic, on what Stone & Kovic are trying to say is, “If you want to be a war hero, well guess again, because its gonna be a chaotic experience.”

Unpatriotic: A few extreme close-ups but not too much throughout the entire film. If it really happened, I would’ve given it a point down.

The Final Verdict: A for APEX!

If you’re a huge Tom Cruise fan like me or a Cruiser, (an official name he call his fans) I strongly recommend this picture. If you haven’t seen it, get off your buttocks and buy it on DVD or Blu-Ray.

Published by nickthemoviecritic

Hi eveyone I'm Nick, and I am a huge movie fan. I thought I would start this blog to give true and accurate reviews of movies. Other sites give great movies bad reviews, but I am an ordinary person who just loves movies and tells it like I see it.
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